to that effect

1. 1.

   with that general meaning

   “she said something to that effect”

Questions about to that effect

What does to that effect mean?

to that effect means "with that general meaning".

Is to that effect a common word?

to that effect is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.